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We also talk to those in other creative industries to discuss their careers, the potential cross over with film production and practical tips for a successful and fulfilling career.
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The Honest Filmmaker
How to get 200,000 Streams on a Bigfoot Movie - Micro Budget Masterclass with Mitch Laing
#filmpodcast #bigfoot #moviemaking`
This week on the podcast I'm talking to filmmaker Mitch Laing. Mitch is the owner of Open Heart Productions from North East Louisiana. His recent micro-budget feature The Bogman has been released on streaming through Green Apple Entertainment and has amassed over two hundred thousand views.
With a second film already in production and ten films already slated to be made with Green Apple Entertainment in the same extended universe. I spoke to Mitch about what it was like to make the film, his experiences with sales and distribution, his plans for the future and why America is so obsessed with Bigfoot. Enjoy!
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HONEST, OPEN ADVICE ABOUT YOUR FILMMAKING CAREER
Are you about to leave Uni with a filmmaking degree? Or want to change careers and work in a creative industry? We want to give you the tools you need to enter the real world of production or freelancing. Honest and open career advice from people in the business.
We also talk to those in other creative industries to discuss their careers, the potential cross over with film production and practical tips for a successful and fulfilling career.
Join the community: http://www.thehonestfilmmaker.co.uk
[Music] hi Jim here and you're listening to the honest filmmaker podcast career advice from people in the business this week I'm speaking to filmmaker Mitch Lang Mitch is the owner of open heart Productions in Northeast Louisiana his recent micro budget feature The Bogman has been released through green apple entertainment and has amassed over 200,000 views with a second film already in post-production and 10 films slated to be made in conjunction with green apple in the same exended Universe I spoke to Mitch about what it was like to make the film his experiences with sales and distribution and also his plans for the future and why America is so obsessed with Bigfoot enjoy so tell me how you ended up working on Films uh well um I actually I started uh in the entertainment business in the music business like a lot of uh folks did uh I started playing uh bass in a uh in a church band whenever I was like a 11 years old and it was a really bad introduction to music because I was 11 and my first show was like in front of 25 200 people and I just kind of and we were like in a church tour bus and like at age 12 I was like touring and had like 500 bucks in my pocket from a show thinking man this music stuff was easy this was super simple and uh turns out I just happened to be lucky and because I thought I'll quit I'll start a rock band and it'll be just as good like it'll be just as many people there and it didn't work out that way so what then moved you into film making out music well I've always been a huge fan of movies like a lot of folks are and uh I you know I probably watched uh Batman Ghostbusters jaws and the Gremlins on and The Goonies probably on repeat a hundred times growing up and um whenever I was 19 I was out of college I I was in a band that was signed the band broke up and uh I was in a weird position because I'm from Northeast Louisiana and we don't really have film schools here and we don't really have a whole lot of anything when it comes to that you like there's nothing around when it comes to opportunity like that and has been like that for years um so whenever I realized that music wasn't going to be my full-time gig I was like well what else do I even care about and um movies was the thing that I was the only other thing besides music that I was just as passionate about but once again I had no opportunity I definitely didn't make the grades to go to college I definitely couldn't get me any pale grants or anything like that so uh I started working at a local TV station that was my first introductory into uh to film or television or anything like that just trying to pick up whatever ever I could and I actually I tell uh we I talk to Young filmmakers all the time around here and uh I I actually I tell them all the time if you want to get into film making the first thing that you need to learn to do is to write a script you need to know how to write a story and you need to know how to tell a story and you need to know how to make that story interesting uh to where people are are locked in within the first 20 minutes and if you can't do that if you can't write a script then you might as well not even move forward because that's the building block of all of this and uh so I I I bought some books and I learned how to write a script and you know you practice by getting reps and I like hammered out five scripts back to back like I wrote a script started another one back to back to back because it doesn't matter who you are it doesn't matter if you're uh a cook getting going into the kitchen for the first time you're uh a uh um a football player picking up a ball for the first time or an a musician picking up an instrument for the first time the first thing that you ever do on that is gonna suck you're not gonna be good at it it's gonna be really bad so yeah just get it all out the way like get all the bad stuff like always be making always be creating and let's just get your reps in you know and that that's what I did and uh uh one of those five scripts uh we did a a short film me and my friends and uh it was terrible and um I was shopping around that script to anybody really like this was this is like 200 sixish so like you know the internet it was there you know um but it wasn't the all encompassing you know the entire knowledge in your pocket that it is now type thing you know I hell didn't even have a phone with the internet until like 2012 like that's how kind of far back in technology we are you know here I mean now everything's all cool but back then I was lucky to have text messaging on my phone and people used tell Mitch why can't you ever text like I don't have it I don't have texting on this flip phone but um a buddy of mine was going to college at the local uh Community College and one of the profess professors uh owned his own uh production company and he helped in the Communications Department at that college uh the measley communications program that there was but he was a filmmaker and was serious about it and was trying to really develop that and he read the script and he liked it and he said he wanted it and I said great awesome uh cool real quick um can I direct that thing though he's like well uh uh where'd you go to film school at I'm like what film school do you think I went to around here my dude where did you go to film school at he's like well I didn't okay all right so I didn't go to film school he's like all right well uh you ever take any classes or read any books on this I'm like no um you ever done this before like yeah I made a short film well can I see it no why not because it's terrible uh so the guy agreed to he gave me the greatest gift in the world his name was Professor uh Jack Dunn Brian Dunn is what he goes by he offered me to Apprentice under him and his film company for six months and in that six months he had me come over to his house three days a week and he would sit down and show me how to light a scene how to work a camera how to do the audio recorder how do you edit let's go up there how do you do pre-production how do you do sound how do you record the like he he just put me through the ringer in six months and uh got real Hands-On work with it every day I aced every test because I was the only guy in the class and uh after six months he's like all right man you officially have all the knowledge that you could get from a film school the only difference is you don't have a piece of paper that says it why is America so obsessed with Bigfoot and Sasquatch and where's that come from do you think you know that's a that's actually a question that I've never gotten before uh and I think this is because this is the first uh uh British is it British or is it English how do y'all yeah yeah British British English I want to make sure I'm I'm cool here you know uh this is my first one of those uh with yeah um honestly I kind of think people people kind of see whatever it is that they need in in myths and legends you know like we we as humans we tend to meld everything to our psyche to fit in whatever box we needed to fit in and I don't know there's just something about Bigfoot like that mystery that that question like is it real is it not real if it is real how come we haven't got any definite you know proof yet in 2024 you know maybe it's because he just really don't want to be around us but you know it's it's it's a it's a tough It's it's a tough question to answer because I'm also because I go to a lot of Bigfoot festivals I see both sides of people that like absolutely do not believe that Bigfoot is real could never be real and at the same time I have a lot of friends in that community that like are Die Hard Believers and if you question that Bigfoot's not real well you're the idiot and you know it's it's very strange man yes it is but it's very popular and then I guess my question is when you decided right that's the feature film I'm going to make were you thinking commercially were you thinking oh there's going to be an audience for this or you just thinking I love big foot doing honestly if I'm being 100% honest whenever we made Bogman we weren't really 100% sure that anybody was even gonna see it like it was uh see open heart Productions is the uh film company the production company that I started and like I told you there's not a whole lot of opportunity in the northeast corner of Louisiana for film making there's a lot in New Orleans there's a lot over in shreport but nothing in our corner and I spent 2006 to 2019 trying my best like I had this hope that somebody above me was going to reach down and give me a hand and pull me up yeah and then I learned the hard way in life that that's not the way it goes and so I started looking around me and I was like well who else what what what's around me who is around me that feels the same way that I feel like who around me has the same passion that have the same dreams but just like me are were born here and stuck here and so uh we we call ourselves The Island of Misfit Toys because I I went out and I built relationships with absolutely anybody and everybody that I could that even wanted to do film like here's another thing every single person in openart Productions and we're about 35 deep uh solid crew um and working at all times and not one of us went to film school not a one of us and uh so this was just like a hobby for us that we were just very passionate about uh I've been a big fan of Bigfoot since junior high like most Americans I guess now that that's a thing and but here's the thing at the time like the Bigfoot stuff wasn't like blowing up like it is now like it was a weird thing that I noticed that like whenever we did bog man we wasn't thinking about the culture we weren't thinking about you know anything like that this was just a topic that we thought would be entertaining and so and it would be fun to make a monster movie out in the woods you know and and then like once we made it and then it called which that's a whole story in itself because like I said we didn't think this was going to happen but whenever it did it was just like everywhere we looked all of a sudden there was Bigfoot everywhere it's like when did Bigfoot become the Beatles you know yeah no it certainly has it certainly has um it is everywhere so then tell me about how did the deal with uh green apple entertainment come up and if you don't mind giving me details on that because I'm sure other micr budget filmmakers would want to know how is that structured for you guys um it's a wild ride first of all because everything that we're we're doing we're learning on the Fly you know it's uh it's it's akin to a very slow moving magic Carpet Ride um we finished the movie and we watched it and like we were all just very just happy with it we were very proud of it like man dude like this could have been so much worse like you know especially the stimulus and the fact that we only spent $5,000 to make this you know it was like this could have been bad and it it's watchable you know like and one of our crew members uh guy named Damon Adcock he actually came to me and said hey man I've actually got this uh Ace in the Hole I've had in my back pocket that I've actually kind of been waiting for whenever I finished my film to use it uh but this movie's got something and it's entertaining and it's fun and it doesn't take itself seriously so it allows you to enjoy the ride and I think that I'm going to use this card for this movie and I'm like what is it he's like man this is a guy over in in California he's an executive producer in a studio he didn't tell me who it was or anything like that like Studio he just gave me his name and he's like email this guy send him the movie tell him that I sent you and tell him that uh Damon wants to call in his favor and so I did that he watched the movie and he said I can see why Damon did that here here's uh my guy that's my agent that does all my movie sales here's his email tell him that I sent you I'll let I'll confirm it if he wants an email me and uh we're gonna get this movie picked up by somebody and so we did that and uh Leaf was our agic with a focus First International and uh he went out and found us six different offers uh from six different distributors and we sat down painstakingly and uh met all of them videoed chat you know kind of like this and uh I noticed that once you get in that situation and you're talking to the Distributors and you're talking to people over and over and over they all start to kind of sound the same like all the things that they're saying are all the same which is all basically boils down to we'll give it our best shot we we can we can submit it to this this and this and this but you know it's up to them if they accept it and and you know then it's up to y'all to promote it and this that and the and it just kind of seemed like we were just going to be another number and just kind of thrown into the machine but then the writer strike and the actor strike happened and that really worked in our favor whenever you're a a hungry nobody that you're not a part of a union and you own all your own well you become way more appealing to way more wider casting Distributors which is why green apple uh was interested in us and out of everybody that we spoke to Green Apple was the only company that sounded excited that we that to be a part of it like they were excited about the movie yeah they said the same stuff that everybody else said but there was a pep and they were like no man like we believe in this one like we like this ain't like one of those things that like oh if something happens if the right people see this it'll spread like wildfire we believe that and we are trying to build frises here at our company and if you got any more of these if you got any sequel ideas anything that y'all want to do let us know and so we immediately submitted our sequel idea because we did have a sequel like this The Bogman wasn't just going to be our one and done like we had planned like oh we'll do a sequel and four or five years down the road you know like we'll save up some money and like we'll blow it out you know and then it became all right bog man's done it's released on all the platforms you have a year to give us another one so it was like oh okay so we had to we went out and they uh green apple wasn't in a spot where they could even though they can in the future fund our films they couldn't at the time because they had spent so much of their money on purchasing all these titles they had to get all these titles out and promoted and all this that and the other so that pretty much wiped out their creative budget until 2025 and they let me know that they were like listen if y'all can get us some more movies between now and them we you know we will help y'all out in the future but we uh we just can't right now and um we had no business track to do sea of Madness like that movie with that script with the budget that we had but we shouldn't have been able to do Bogman either so we were just like you know it let's play uh Russian Roulette spin the chamber Boris we can all we all all that'll happen is we'll end up in debt so uh the deal you have a green apple have you seen money from that yet or is that going to be coming have you seen any you know how long's it been out what's the sort of it uh from what the way it goes and I've I've had this uh confirmed with me by the agent and a couple of other filmmakers and stuff to see if this is really how it goes uh the movie was released back in October and uh we were told by them and other people that it usually takes about two or three quarters of of views with the ad companies before they get their generated uh reports and the money gets in stuff so they said that you know uh actually the 15th of this month is whenever we're supposed to be receiving our our first uh three quarter checks from oh okay it's like it it'll be have you seen any yeah have you seen you've seen reports on how because what I'm interested in is because it's it seems to be on a few platforms is have you got an idea of which platform it's done better on uh I do know that on YouTube uh between the two or three uh channels that it's on because green apple licensed it uh to two others in their own it's over a 100,000 uh views on YouTube alone and um I think tub is somewhere around another 50,000 uh Amazon Prime is like another uh 10 15,000 and the falsa map uh it's like another like between 10 and 20,000 so like we're like we're knocking on the door of 200,000 plus views uh of the movie since October which is definitely not something that I expected but I'm very very happy for and like yeah honored by yeah and just last one on the money because I know this is the thing people will tune in for they' be like well he's made this film he got a ton of views is he making any money have you got any idea what that might translate into Cashwise or are you just waiting to find out well I will say this I've I've done independent research and any filmmaker out there y'all can do your's own independent research don't just take my word for it because you shouldn't be taking anybody's word for anything you should be going out and figuring out your own to begin with but if you want to take it from me and not take any other you know consideration the stuff that I looked up with the ads that are playing because we get paid off of ads uh from the ads that are playing in the movie it translates to about a150 perview and uh so if that's the case then I am very much looking forward to this check coming on the 15th I'll have to check back in with you because that'll be a good day when you get that check um so did you do much promoting yourself for this or did it just kind of just take off were you promoting the film yourself oh we yeah yeah um none of us ever sleep like none of us ever like have personal lives it's just this all the time uh and so yeah we we do a lot of like um grassroot promoting ourselves we go to Bigfoot festivals a lot around the South and in Texas and Oklahoma and Arkansas and stuff like that um we've done a couple of film festivals uh we got a nice honorable mention the Los Angeles indie film festival for Bogman uh last year ni uh we placed third in the um overall Louisiana homegrown uh uh film at the uh kashu film festival and uh I think we got also like a runner up at the uh scream Queen Film Festival which that one was super cool because I got to meet Donald farmer uh through that and I don't know if you know who that is but he is a legendary uh American indie horror filmmaker that uh got his start out on the uh special effects team for Evil Dead 2 back in the day and um that's pretty epic and he's he's actually where I met uh he he hooked us up with h Jessa flux one of our mermaid actresses for uh the Sea of Madness film and uh he's just been a a big supporter uh of us and another big one and this to me was like a childhood dream because growing up in Louisiana we had uh this video rental store called action video and every Friday my mom would pick me and my sister up from school we'd get a pizza at the local pizza joint we'd stop by the video place and we'd rent a movie and go home and watch it and the only two Bigfoot movies that they had at that store was Harry and the Hendersons and the legend of bogy Creek did you hear that you know that movie I haven't seen the Legend of Boggy Creek no it beat Star Wars the first year that the first week that it was out uh did it did uh it was the the original OG Bigfoot uh documentary monster movie from 72 I believe and uh through one of the Bigfoot film festivals that we did I got to meet uh Keith Crabtree who played the Bigfoot in that movie and then me and him became like friends like like he calls me once a month like hey what are you doing saw the Bigfoot again in the backyard me and my wife got a picture of them here I'm about to send it to you you know like he believes he believes in Bigfoot with all of his heart and I love it you know and uh it's like it's like being a fan of Batman and then being friends with Michael Keaton you later in life pretty cool and he actually he came and he did uh we're working on the third movie right now and he actually came and did a cameo in it for us and we did ited at the cabin from The Legend of bogy Creek because he made us come out there yeah yeah yeah oh that's brilliant that's brilliant and so looking at these films you're making now because you got a bunch of films planned are you sticking to the same budget are you like right we're going to keep it to this amount or are you is it you know like most sequels in Hollywood they just spend more money and more money and more money are you just sticking to the same sort of budget level um really it just whatever comes our way if we can get more money absolutely more money is always welcomed uh but you know with uh sea of Madness the sequel we filmed on the USS kid in Baton Rouge Louisiana the legendary Battleship from World War II uh Tom Hanks filmed the Greyhound on it uh back in 2021 and um just to get that boat for the seven days we needed it was$188,000 just to rent it and that's not like and we we we're you know we're still we're still we're still small fry you know like we we're still paying everybody 50 bucks a day including me the director you know like that's where we're at in life but that's fine because it's more than what we were getting paid to do it we would have done it for free anyway so getting 50 bucks is like hey you know cool we go eat but uh we had to find the money for that and um I didn't have any luck with anybody in town any business people lawyers anybody nobody wanted to help even though we had a movie that was released it I could hey go to Tubi right now you can watch it we're on Amazon Prime like you know whatever like this isn't I kept telling them like a lot of times whenever you invest in movies the big question is is how is this going to be seen by people how is it going to make money well we have all those questions answered it's like it's not a risk and we still couldn't get anybody to to fall in so I was about I was going to call up all of my crew uh one at a time and tell them hey guys we we were supposed to start filming in four months we need money now we don't have it we got to postpone this thing indefinitely until we find something out and after like the first five or six people that I called nobody answered so I thought like are they ducking me like uh but the sixth guy answered and I told him he's like oh man that sucks um how much do you need man how much were you looking for them like dude the bare minimum just to pull it the off you know like I need 35k bare minimum 50 we could be slightly comfortable but you know just uh to crash The Landing 35 he's like I got that I'll cover it wow excuse me what do you mean you got that you'll cover it you're have to explain that to me you're not going to just leave me with that he's like oh man I worked in the ol field before I did this I have a nest egg I I was doing this because I wanted to learn how to do this and y'all guys are serious and uh y'all are making results so if y'all include me in on the back end you know hell yeah whatever you need you're funded I'm like all right guys we got this so we we end up spending 50 all in all between him and another guy another producer that came in uh that you know he had a family member pass he threw in another uh 15 off of that and uh got us up to that and even then there was still a lot of problems and like uh even like we're also like working like 16 17 hour days uh on the boat because once you left the boat we couldn't come back there was no re- shoots it's you film until you drop and soon as you wake back up after a 4-Hour nap get back in the makeup chair we're about to do it again baby you know and uh and there was a lot of stuff like food and showers all stuff went bye-bye after a while and we had to get creative and I maxed out a credit card to make sure that we kept going and uh it was the most miserable fun that I've ever had in my entire the most miserable fun I love that that is a good expression for film making hope you enjoyed that episode if you'd like to hear from more industry professionals how they got into the business and how you can do the same or you just want to listen to some cool stories from movie sets around the world then please do subscribe to the honest filmmaker podcast[Music]
